resolution
 

Hi I'm wondering if I get a widescreen monitor for my computer with higher resolution will it make my games look better because of the higher resolution?

Higher resolutions give you better image quality though also require more processing power. A lower resolution with higher levels of AA might be more effective than using a higher resolution.

whats AA?

What resolution is your current monitor? I found that moving from a 19" 1440x900 LCD to a 22" 1680x1050 LCD made a huge difference in terms of overall game enjoyment

AA is anti-aliasing

ah thanks ummm my current resolution is: 1280x1024...

I always up anti-aliasing at the highest i can but what dose it change in games?

i have another question..... When i play most of my PC games it has an option in the settings that says rendering quality what dose this do???

for start what graphics card have you got??
Also my guess in changing the rendering is probably changing the quality of like characters and environments/textures.

The short answer is that although a monitor with a higher resolution will enable finer , crisper graphics, (specifically on lines and edges of objects), moving on to higher resolutions will significantly increase the work-load on your GFX card / CPU.

Basically your graphics will appear finer & smoother, but your frame rate may show a significant reduction in performance which can make the games seem slow to react to mouse movements and "jerky".

A safe bet is to just find a friend who might lend you one of their higher resolution screens for an hour or two, and just test it out before you actually buy one.

If you could fill in your specs that would help us help you! ;)

The smaller the monitor and the higher the resolution the better your game will look and the less anti-aliasing (AA) you would need. Meaning that (I know this from experience, see my own system specs) you can game on a 1920x1200 17"monitor with NO AA and the game will look much better than at 1680x1050 with 2xAA.

AA reduces the 'jaggies'. In-game you might see diagonal lines appearing as jagged and not straight like were you to draw them with a ruler. AA uses up a lot of the vram (memory in MB) of your video card. Ie if your video card is 512MB you can use more AA and enjoy better gameplay than were your video card 256MB.

Basically no one here can answer your question as yet because we don't know what graphics card you got powering your 1280x1024 monitor. It will also help if you post which types of games you like to play since some games are much more power-demanding than others.

At the end of the day, what one needs to check is the physical amount of pixels your graphics card has to work to create an image.
i.e. for your current monitor it's 1280x1024=1,310,720 pixels.

If you buy a 22" monitor @ 1680x1050 that's = 1,764,000 pixels.

A monitor @ 1920x1200 would soar up to 2,304,000 pixels meaning nearly twice as much as your current 1280x1024. But then if you needed to pump up the AA to the max on your old monitor you might only need 2x AA on the 1920x1200 or even none at all.

my graphics card is a nvidia geforce 9800GT

I use a 24" (1920 X 1200) and its much nicer than anything I had before.

1 thing that made a HUGE difference was using a hdmi/DVI cable instead of the VGA(lol, just figured that out a couple weeks ago) Blacks are MUCH blacker and colors are much nicer.

I usually use several cards in SLI or Crossfire to make sure to be able to set the settings to max but I sold my 5770s and am using a single 9800GT (till the 5830s come out)

To answer your original question, YES. But try to think of ur comp as a whole package, make sure the GPUs/CPU/LCD all work together..

I run a screen that's at 1600x900. I think it has a nice balance of visual quality and ease on your system. Be careful and don't get stuck in the loop I'm in. :laugh:

Buy bigger monitor, gpu too slow/upgraded, repeat.

lol, not just you..Im sure the GPU companies are in cahoots with the LCD guys..:twitch:

I was going to get a 22" and keep my single 9800gt for that reason..But after watching Blue Ray stuff on my 24 I decided it was soooooo worth it..

Yeah, I already had plans to buy a larger monitor a couple hours after I ordered this one. :laugh:

I play at max of my monitor 1600x1200 with 4xAA it's an old 4:3 , 21" CRT looks great but...
I can't wait to buy an widescreen LCD wich is more natural way for your eyes to look at many things as our vision is more like a widescreen (not exactly but you know what i mean ,180 degrees wide)